Because Print Is Not Yet Dead

May 28, 2012 3:50 PM

Free online graph paper generators: variations of squares, triangle, rhombus, and hexagonal, circular and polar, for drawing, gaming, writing, note-taking and much more. Blank Sheet Music (Flash) for all arrangements (PDF). Create and edit your own grids, probability and logarithmic graphs, petri-dish inserts and storyboards. Also, multilingual  monthly and yearly calendars. Plus, more than you ever wanted to know about ISO paper dimensions and printable paper models of polyhedra. Prev-ious-ly.
posted by Bora Horza Gobuchul (36 comments total)

This makes my OCD heart run proud.
posted by xingcat at 3:54 PM on May 28, 2012

Hex and Iso paper... The objects of desire of my youth.
posted by Artw at 3:57 PM on May 28, 2012 [2 favorites]

If I favourite this any harder I'm going to need a new mouse.
posted by motty at 3:57 PM on May 28, 2012 [7 favorites]

Didn't know that porn was allowed on the blue.
posted by Foci for Analysis at 4:17 PM on May 28, 2012 [19 favorites]

Not only am I going to be able to make a series of awesome battletech maps, I'll be able to use the polyhedra to mock up a Hrothgar... and maybe an Overlord to boot.

Best of the web (for helping my fledgling campaign endure my players' power creep over the coming sessions).
posted by Slackermagee at 4:40 PM on May 28, 2012 [1 favorite]

This is genius. Hard to follow genius, but still genius.
posted by hoyland at 4:43 PM on May 28, 2012

I tried to confuse the music one by putting a key signature on guitar tab. It was too smart for me.
posted by Jimbob at 4:43 PM on May 28, 2012

This is genius. Hard to follow genius, but still genius.

In case your browser gets upset about the security cert on that site, this non-https link works just as well. I don't get it, but I'm not an architect.
posted by intermod at 5:14 PM on May 28, 2012

Knitters who want to draft out intarsia patterns will want to use some of the custom knitting graph paper where you get little rectangles instead of squares.

Since the knit stitch is longer than it is tall, if you draft an intarsia pattern on regular graph paper, it will be distorted (squashed) when you actually knit it up.
posted by ErikaB at 5:15 PM on May 28, 2012 [2 favorites]

*prints out a bunch of sheets, scatters them on the floor, and rolls in them*
posted by strixus at 5:19 PM on May 28, 2012 [17 favorites]

Needs moar Smith Chart.

Why are there multiple options for graph paper? There is - and can only be - one: A4, 1 mm grid. Everything else is just squared paper.
posted by scruss at 5:31 PM on May 28, 2012 [3 favorites]

Every time a printer jams, screaming "But I don't have any A4 paper!", I wipe a tear away before telling it to crop to US letter.

While all ISO paper formats have consistently the same aspect ratio of sqrt(2) = 1.414, the U.S. format series has two different alternating aspect ratios 17/11 = 1.545 and 22/17 = 1.294. Therefore, you cannot reduce or magnify from one U.S. format to the next higher or lower without leaving an empty margin, which is rather inconvenient.

Dear god.

In some countries (e.g., Germany) even many brands of toilet paper have format A6.

I... huh. That is dedication to standards.
posted by BungaDunga at 5:42 PM on May 28, 2012 [8 favorites]

I've been using incompetech for years and it rules so hard. Adjustable graph paper on demand! In colors! And hex! So great.
posted by DU at 5:51 PM on May 28, 2012 [2 favorites]

Needs moar Smith Chart.

Already has some
posted by DU at 5:53 PM on May 28, 2012

Already has some

I'm a nimrod. That was via ErikaB's link, which rules possibly even more than incompetech.
posted by DU at 5:56 PM on May 28, 2012

That is dedication to standards.

No, that's Germany. They don't dedicate themselves to standards, they standardize ALL THE THINGS.

Only a people in which have words like Kolbenfresser and Klimakatastrophe and Herzinfarktvorsorgeuntersuchung would have toilet paper of this nature.
posted by strixus at 5:59 PM on May 28, 2012 [2 favorites]

This is so full of win. Why does this make me so giddy?
posted by xaminmo at 6:06 PM on May 28, 2012

So we all got our D&D Next playtest packs, right?
posted by robocop is bleeding at 6:12 PM on May 28, 2012

In some countries (e.g., Germany) even many brands of toilet paper have format A6.

That seems... perfect sensible to me? If you have a standard sizing system you might as well use it, and yeah, that would be about A6.

The mess of paper sizes with weird names that America is to me far weirder.
posted by Artw at 6:19 PM on May 28, 2012 [3 favorites]

Those aren't trapezoids.
posted by Sys Rq at 6:20 PM on May 28, 2012

My favorite German word ist und bleibt: "Ausländerrückführungsbeauftragter"
posted by nostrada at 6:23 PM on May 28, 2012 [1 favorite]

This makes me happy in that I can print out paper and make my own dungeons, yet sad in that I don't have (and haven't, for many years) anyone to play through them with...
posted by Ghidorah at 6:50 PM on May 28, 2012

And the tabs! The tab paper! I've spent so, so much time tracing out tabs in my little tiny Power Puff Girls notebook, drawing lines with a ruler, wishing that there was some simple, easy way to get these sheets. This is possibly the greatest thing I've encountered in months. Months.
posted by Ghidorah at 6:54 PM on May 28, 2012

If your country isn't busy denying global warming, I'd imagine coming up with an equivalent of Klimakatastrophe would be relatively high on your list of words to make up.
posted by hoyland at 6:59 PM on May 28, 2012 [1 favorite]

I'm going to go ahead and be a jerk and self-link here to a comic (link is to the Questionable Content webcomic forums, where it's easiest to view as a unit, but it's on Flickr here too) I made about A4 paper. It was my "solution" to an assignment which read:

In the U.S., standard-sized paper is 8.5” by 11”. In Europe, standard-sized paper is called A4 paper, and is not quite the same size as ours.
A0 paper has an area of 1 sq. meter.
A1 paper, A2 paper, A3 and A4 paper are all mathematically similar to A0 paper.
To get A1 paper, you cut A0 paper in half (which way?).
To get A2, you cut A1 in half, and so on.
What are the dimensions of A4 paper?
Is A4 paper [mathematically] similar to our standard paper?

posted by valrus at 7:26 PM on May 28, 2012 [12 favorites]

valrus I am saving that for every time I need to explain to anyone what A4 paper is, and why it is superior.
posted by strixus at 7:31 PM on May 28, 2012 [2 favorites]

I recently shifted my RPG campaign and adventure design notebooks fully over to GoodNotes on the iPad (not perfect, but now the best solution for me, all things considered). One thing I've been cursing it for is a lack of a simple way to introduce different scaled hex maps. Oh frabjous day!
posted by howfar at 7:33 PM on May 28, 2012

Oh man, now I'm slavering to make some cool word puzzles based on these patterns. This is great; thanks!
posted by painquale at 7:37 PM on May 28, 2012

That's a great comic, valrus!
posted by painquale at 7:42 PM on May 28, 2012

If only there was a stereonet plot.
posted by sopwath at 9:23 PM on May 28, 2012

ISO paper is stupid.

Because, like, whoever invented it got hung up on the idea of A0 being 1m², which, to make that halving thing work, means its dimensions are all uselessly unmemorable and clunkily inelegant.

A0 is 841×1189mm
A1 is 594×841mm
A2 is 420×594mm
A3 is 297×420mm
A4 is 210×297mm

And so on down the line. Look at all those odd numbers that need to get rounded when you halve them. Where is your German efficiency now, DIN 476? Think of the wasted postage on all those lost millimetres!

And, apparently, that is the only justification for A0 being 1m²: Calculating postage by working from the base weight of the A0 sheet. Because apparently it's much easier to calculate the postage by carefully counting every last sheet of paper and doing a bunch of math than it is to, you know, weigh it.
posted by Sys Rq at 9:30 PM on May 28, 2012 [1 favorite]

Lisa Simpson on making graphs
posted by neuron at 11:40 PM on May 28, 2012

This is brilliant!
posted by dowcrag at 2:28 AM on May 29, 2012

In some countries (e.g., Germany) even many brands of toilet paper have format A6.

Perhaps the most noticeable effect of the recession on my daily life has been toilet paper. Almost instantly the rolls in the UK got significantly narrower with much fatter tubes. A standardized size would at least have prevented the former.
posted by srboisvert at 6:20 AM on May 29, 2012

I can't think of a reason why I'd need to print out my own graph paper, but my inner nerd is glad that website exists.

One of the greatest improvements of the fancy new printer installed at work is not the fact that it scans, photocopies, can staple and all that: it's that it has never asked me to feed it bloody US letter paper. Finally, a printer that knows that it's in the UK.
posted by milkb0at at 7:43 AM on May 29, 2012 [1 favorite]

Oh man, I loaded this in a tab and forgot about it, I'm only just now seeing this. I'm late to the party, but I brought a really nice present:

Guide to Japanese Paper Dimensions.

I picked this up in an art store in Japan, it's a wallet sized fold-out. I think the Japanese have more different traditional paper sizes than anyone, since paper dimensions were standardized and regulated by the government, I think even back before the Edo era. This all predates the metric standards. And they have some unique modern standards like JIS.
posted by charlie don't surf at 7:26 AM on June 4, 2012